Insurance is just one of those things. We struggle with justifying with paying monthly for something that we aren’t seeing a monthly return from. Many of us also just struggle with adding another bill to our monthly expenses. You start to think, “Hey I’m a safe driver” or “I ain’t sick right now.” When reality comes crashing down though, whether through a car accident or medical procedure, a full out of pocket cost will hurt most people financially.
Lil Boosie just recently found out that he had an aggressive form of kidney cancer. He just went through surgery where he had half of his kidney removed and is reportedly doing well (shout out to Lil Boosie). Lil Boosie let people know during his ordeal that he didn’t have any type of health insurance and had to pay for the surgery out of pocket, which ran him $90,000. Just typing that number makes me nauseous. The reality of the situation is that most people don’t have anywhere that level of disposable cash, putting them in the stranglehold of debt. The debt is accompanied by interest rates that trap people in a cycle of poverty. Unless a person ends up winning the lotto or has a mysterious benefactor, they end up stuck.
Nationally, we have the Affordable Care Act (also called Obama Care) and while it isn’t a perfect system, it starts to address making sure that everyone can get some form of health care/insurance. One of the major elements of it is that health insurance companies aren’t able to turn you away due to some pre-existing condition. The law is designed such now that everyone is required to have health insurance (whether provided by an employer, by the government or independently). There is a tax penalty if one doesn’t get with the program. While at first this may seem to be a heavy handed approach, it also is causing health insurance companies to compete with each other. They’re all trying to grab up all of the people who never had plans before so they’re offering these nice packages. The best place to start to find out about health care is at the official government site at www.healthcare.gov. Trust me, you don’t want to be hit with a $90,000 bill anytime soon.
